Companies could be exposing the crown jewels to malware and data breaches by not having a formal bring-your-own-device policy warns IDC Australia.

Companies could be exposing the crown jewels to malware and data breaches by not having a formal bring-your-own-device policy warns IDC Australia.

The analyst firm has released findings from its End Users BYOD survey which surveyed 250 Australians including managers, content producers and employees who work on the road such as sales representatives.

It found that 55 per cent of participants had no formal BYOD policy for smartphones while 49 per cent did not have a policy for tablets. In addition, 41 per cent of business surveyed had no policy in place for laptops.

"While most businesses appear to be in a discovery phase with policies, there are still small pockets which ignore the issue outright," said IDC Australia telecommunications associate director Dustin Kehoe in a statement.

"In the interim, corporate data is more exposed to a host of security vulnerabilities such as malware attacks across an untold number of endpoints."

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According to Kehoe, while the IT department can report cost savings through BYOD, not having a policy in place could end up costing the organisation even more.

"Employees are finding ways to expense their communication costs elsewhere but this means business are still incurring large hidden costs which have no way of being measured," he said.

"The only given is that data is inherently less secure."

BlackBerry

The survey also asked participants about the current brand of mobile device they use and what they would prefer to use at work if given a choice.

While Apple led brand preference with its iPhone and iPad, 21 per cent of participants would use a BlackBerry phone for work if given the option to choose their device.

"This suggests that not only does Blackberry have significant mindshare and presence in the enterprise, but IT should not make assumptions on employees' preferences and a survey should be carried out," Kehoe said.

"It is therefore reasonable to assume that if employees were given a stipend to buy the devices they needed for work, the market share of [Blackberry] brands in the enterprise could shift dramatically."

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